What do you really value?

God’s Kids Korner

You may have heard the sentence, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Jesus said those words in the Bible, Luke 12:34. Since the heart is a symbol for love, Jesus was saying that you can tell what a person really cares about or loves from what he values the most.

How can one tell what a person values the most then? Well, a good way is to notice how the person spends his time and how he spends his money.

You do what you enjoy, so how you spend your time shows what you really like and care about. Think about what things you do the most. Does any of your time include spending time with God by going to church, reading the Bible, praying, or helping others in some way? Playing video games or doing fun things is not bad. We need time to enjoy ourselves and relax, but we should spend some of our energy with and for God, too. Just praying every day, being a good friend to someone, or helping with household chores is a good way to start.

Next, think about how you spend your money or allowance. Do you give or share any of your money with others, charities, or the church? God wants us to enjoy our finances too, but He also wants us to help the poor and support the church with our tithes. Tithes are money that we give to the church each week to help pay for its expenses and to help with its work. The Bible suggests we give at least 10 percent, so that means if you get a dollar a week for allowance, you would give 10 cents of that to the church as your tithe.

If we spend all of our time, efforts and money on ourselves, we are being selfish. Maybe we need to honestly re-evaluate our priorities and where our treasure really lies. Jesus said to love our neighbors as ourselves, so He wants us to love and help our friends wherever they may be and to spend some time with Him because He loves us. Give some thought to how you can help someone and spend at least a few minutes every day doing those two things. God will help you if you ask Him to show you ways to do just that.

Let’s pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we know that You love us so much and want us to be happy. The way to be truly happy is to spend some time with You daily and help each other daily, too. We will still have lots of time to spend having fun, but help us to find a few minutes each day to be with You and help someone. We thank You for giving us all we have, so we can share some of our time and money with others. Be with us this week as we try to do these things. In Your name we pray. Amen.